“Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

When people try to handle the law of God, they invariably pervert it, and fit it to their own ideas. The only way to have its perfection appear is to submit to it, allowing it to rule. The it will work itself out in the life. “It is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

We have seen that the end or object of the law is the righteousness which it requires. So it is said that Christ is the end of the law [for those] “who know righteousness.” The law of God is the righteousness of God (see Isa. 51:6,7). But this righteousness is the real life of God Himself, and the words of the law are only the shadow of it. That life is found only in Christ, for He alone declares the righteousness of God (Rom. 3:24, 25).

His life is the law of God, since God was in Him. That which the Jews had only in form is found in fact only in Christ. In Him the end of the law is found. Does anyone say that “the end of the law” means its abolition? Very well; when they find the abolition of Christ, they will have found the abolition of the law, and not before. Only a study of the life of Christ will reveal the righteousness which the law of God requires. “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Matt. 5:17).

The perfect righteousness of the law is found only in Him. It is in Him in absolute perfection. Therefore since Christ dwells in the heart of the believer, in Him only is the end of the law attained. “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (Jn. 6:29). “With the heart one believes to righteousness” (Rom. 10:10).

Waggoner, Waggoner on Romans, pp. 23,26